Silence

My old professor always said that even silence was a form of rhetoric. And if my silence here says anything, it says that I've been busy, that I've felt more stable, that I've been taking my meds, seeing my psych, and seeing my therapist.

In fact, my therapist, and the non-profit she works for, seems so much more professional than my psych that I've gotten her to hook me up with a psych appointment there. I told her that the hospital was so shoddy, that I never see my psych, only his nurse practitioner, and that no one's ever sat me down for a real evaluation, and I told her I want that: I want a real evaluation and diagnosis. And she thinks that's a good step in the right direction. So many things mimic aspects of bipolar, and I don't want to be on five meds if they're the wrong meds for the wrong diagnosis.

We did broach a few subjects that I don't tell many people. Like when I'm elated, the leaves glow. Or that when I'm quiet, it's like I can drop in and listen to this party line in my head. That people are having distinguishable conversations. And that I've seen a shadow figure of a man twice at this apartment and that I used to see the shadow figure of a man and a small dog all the time when I was a little kid. We talked about Jungian psychology and getting more into that.

10:11 a.m. Check-In

Meds: Did not take them last night. Yeah yeah: bad me. Took my morning dose. Added Protonix to the mix again today. Stomach's bothering me.

Mood: 4. Not feeling well today. Could be allergies. I'm going sans-allergy meds this allergy season since they're all OTC now and expensive. Short of patience. Generally annoyed. Cranky.

Sleep: Woke up at 4:30, then again at 7-something. Had a hard time falling asleep last night. Was 11 p.m. when Jb went to bed, and I laid there for a long time trying to sleep. Yesterday afternoon, I was tired, but also couldn't sleep for thinking too much. Unable to relax. Feel vaguely hung over today: still tired, but unable to sleep restfully.

Misc: Don't feel like writing today. Feel as if blog isn't a substitute for a therapist. Also feel don't need therapist. Contrary as hell today. I don't know that I really have anything of importance to say and feel as if all this blogging has been egotistical navel gazing. Hate the blog. Hate myself.

Hearing Things: Heard humming in the kitchen last night. Melodic. Human. Was odd.

Comrades In Arms

I've also been worrying about J----. We met in the hospital and exchanged info, though that's considering breaking a rule in hospital. You're not supposed to have outside contact with anyone you meet inside the psych ward. But we sort of clicked, and it was only for two days. She was discharged before me. But for a few weeks, we didn't talk, and then I called. Because I needed to talk. And it was strange to be able to call someone and to realize that when they asked how you were doing, for once, you didn't have to lie. So we became each other's touchstones. She called when she was thinking about cutting and her husband wasn't home. I called when I just needed to reach out to someone who understood. But the last time I talked to her, things were bad. She was talking about going back into the hospital, about cutting, about wanting to stop taking her meds, even about letting it all go and committing suicide. And I haven't heard from her since, and I... I'm truly afraid to call, to find out that maybe she's relapsed, or worse. I understand wanting to die. And she was in such a black depression. If she committed suicide, not only would it be a horrible tragedy for her family and friends, but selfishly, it'd be like losing a comrade in arms. How easy it is for any of us to slide down that razor's edge, and it'd be like looking into a mirror and seeing possible futures, possible outcomes. How many of us end that way? Why, with all the medications, the therapy, the hospitals, why do some of us never make it? I don't even know if I'm grieving for what could have happened to her, and for myself. Maybe it's for all us standing on the edge of that yawning pit of despair, the slick whisper that asks us, "What are you doing all of this for? Why must you, why must anyone, have to live this?" I can't explain it. All I know is that I have to hold on. And that's as irrational to me as the depression. And I hope like hell she's held on, too.

12:17 p.m. Missed Appt. & List of Symptoms

Dammit, I've forgotten my psych appointment. I had to call them to find out because I couldn't find my appointment card among the trash, the bills, the folders of county info and medical info.

The receptionist sounds vaguely amused when she tells me I missed it; it was earlier today. I'm vaguely annoyed and feel as if she's patpat'd me via phone. They have a cancellation for later today, though, so I'll be going at 5:15 p.m. I call Jb to tell him this, to tell him I might not be home by the time he is, so, "Don't worry! Just at the psych's!" He suggests that maybe we should start writing down my appointments, like on a whiteboard that we post on the bathroom door, a cheap one with cheap markers -- since that's really all we can afford. I feel like a child now, who's been talked to like a child, and shamed into looking at her feet as she digs a toe into the ground.

Feeling child-like, and pissed at myself for what I see as continued incompetence, I tell myself I will look at my blog. I will write down the points I would like to discuss with my psych. Better yet, I'll write them down now! Here is what I will tell my psych:

• I'm am so forgetful I forget appointments and lock myself out of my apartment regularly.
• I would lick sugar off the floor if it spilled. I think this is a Remeron side effect.
• I sleep until 10 p.m., then again at 2 p.m., then again at 11 p.m.
• Sometimes, I cannot sleep because I talk to myself all night long.
• When I am not asleep, I run a constant dialogue with myself in my head.
• I obsess over lyrics, poems, my diagnosis.
• Everything seems dirty to me. I can't touch or eat off certain things until they're clean.
• I screen my calls and avoid people.
• I still don't shower for days. My personal hygiene is definitely lacking.
• I'm writing some, but it's all crap, and I've only begun to read very little bits.
• My dreams are especially vivid, but often forgotten, except in the morning.
• I am feeling somewhat better. The peaks and valleys are less extreme, but the rotation seems quicker, and it's exhausting trying to keep up.
• I saw something the other day that probably wasn't there.
  

This is what I would ask my psych:

• Is Lamictal really supposed to be used as a mood stabilizer?I read that a study from the APA said that it didn't work any better as a mood stabilizer than placebos did.
• Is there something we can try besides Remeron? Something weight neutral that doesn't make me feel like a junky without the benefit of a high?
• Am I really bipolar? Because I'm not sure I am. Shouldn't I be cycling less if I am? And if I'm not, what the hell is this? Because I'd feel so much better if I could label it. If I could hold it in my hands and work around a definition.
• And what about work? It's been 3 months. But I still feel too unstable, like if I tried to find another job now, it'd be a month, maybe more, before I'd be hey-ho! for the hospital again. Should I go for disability and will you support me?
  

I think that's all. I know I have forgotten something. I'm always forgetting something. I just worry it's not a big something. I'd rather it be a small something, like how I've forgotten which bus to take to the hospital to see my psych doctor, though I rode that bus everyday for nearly two weeks. And why is it that I can't get my mind to stop, and yet, I can't get it to function either?

Oh! I did forget. I will take a list of my meds! A list. Not my white bag. The white bag will stay home. I will take white paper instead. Because white paper is more normal. (Only the labels for my posts -- "dosage" -- reminded me that, yes, I'm going to the psych doctor to check the dosage of my meds. How clever. After all, that's what psych doctors are for, yes.)

6:20 a.m. To Sleep Perchance to Dream

Jb's gone by 10:30. He's come down with a cold and is out like a light. For the first time in weeks, I can't sleep. I lie in bed well past midnight, words and thoughts rushing through my head. I've narrated all of my hospitalization, dissected parts of my relationships, my marriage, explained away the periods of increased sexuality, the nights I've stayed up until 4 a.m., and still the words keep flowing in my head. I try meditation, but I'm too distracted. The Tibetan monks call it "monkey mind." And when I try to relax my mind, it begins to hurt, like a bruise.

There's something else. the party line isn't there. In the past, late at night, when everything is quiet and so am I, if I focused inward, staying unobtrusive and silent, I could hear 8-10 voices paired up in conversation in my head. It's like eavesdropping on someone else's phone call. Sometimes I'd get vague flashes of context, especially if it's a family member, and sometimes, it'd merely be a low static of sounds in my head that I rode to sleep.

Don't think I'm confused. It's not the voice of my mind making these conversations up. I know the difference. Because once, and only once, there was a slick, black voice that told me upsetting things and asked for dangerous favors.

I finally fall asleep long after midnight, dream the vivid dreams I seem to have now, and remember none of them. I wake at 3 a.m. and then again at 6 a.m. It's more than that, though. I've been up and about most of the night. Because somewhere between midnight and 3 a.m., I ate the rest of the cookies I baked. Again, the Remeron. The sugar cravings are killing me.

6:52 p.m. Playing "Wife"

I lasted until 4 p.m. before I crawled into bed for two hours. This was after, I think, I told Jb I'd make dinner, which I promptly forgot. I do remember the noise of the tv, the computer, Jb smoking, and it's like a static in my head that I can't tune out. I have problems with noise now: too much of it, too loud, too sensitive to it. Sometimes, when I want to sleep, or get very very quiet so that I can visit the party line in my head, I resent the noise. And so I resent Jb.

"The bitch" itches just below the skin, waiting. One minute, we're laughing, the next, Jb's looking at me wrong, I'm paranoid about what he's thinking, every expression is some comment on my condition, every request, some monumental task I can't stand to do for him. This is not about Jb. There is something wrong inside me, and anything can trigger it. And the bitch scratches her way out, scratching eyes and hearts in the process, and even when I know, somewhere in my mind, that there's no reason for this, it happens all the same. And because it does, the bitch becomes me; I become the bitch. And my mood dives.

So I play the "perfect wife" game. Dinner ready and on the stove at 5:30. Fresh-baked brownies, cookies, lasagna. Because I'm hoping food will forgive everything else Jb has to deal with; I'm hoping he'll see that I love him, that he isn't just a paycheck, which it feels like more and more when I'm numb and indifferent. Still, even then, I know that I love him. It's the disconnect in the knowing and the feeling, always that gap that I'm too tired, too sluggish, too down to traverse. Until the numbness lifts again, and feeling becomes fact. Up and down. In and out.

This is how my last week has gone:

10 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. -- Wake up.
10:10 a.m. - 2:40 p.m. -- Rummage in the fridge for a breakfast I don't want.
10:40 a.m. - 3:10 p.m. -- Sit in my chair and stare uselessly at the computer screen.
2 p.m. - 5 p.m. -- Try to pack one box, do one thing, so that I have something shiny to hold up to Jb when he comes home: "Look, I did the dishes! Look, I packed a box!"
3 p.m. -- Nap time. Deliberate or otherwise.
5 p.m. -- Start dinner.

I am happy when I manage one thing and dinner. I have managed this almost every day this week. I consider this a good week, despite how I might have actually felt. Because managing one thing and dinner looks, from the outside, like normal.